Exercise and Appetite

Aerobic exercise temporarily diminishes people's interest in food, studies suggest. In one, women showed reduced activity in areas of the brain related to attention and emotion when they looked at pictures of food after taking a brisk 45-minute walk, compared with another day when they hadn't exercised, reports James LeCheminant, an associate professor of exercise sciences at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Exercise may divert blood from brain areas involved in food intake or may alter levels of brain chemicals that regulate eating, says Todd Hagobian, an assistant professor of kinesiology at the California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo. Exercise has been shown to suppress food consumption for up to a day in some studies, he adds.